


Dear Jessie

by Cyrelia_J



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breastfeeding, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Torture, Intersex Parmak, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, POV Third Person, Pregnancy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unconventional Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 22:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J
Summary: Their child waking him in the middle of the night sometimes gives him time for reflection. Jack doesn't sleep but Parmak sleeps deeply now- just one of many things that he once would have thought impossible. Parmak looks back on his relationship with Jack and how it all came to be.Jack rarely sleeps for any length of time, instead catching rest in small increments through the day. Like “Da Vinci”, he says......He hears the babble dimly as Jack’s head comes closer to his. Jack likes to talk to him when he sleeps. Sometimes he’ll recite human plays. For three days Parmak remembers, Jack recited the entire Never Ending Sacrifice in flawless Kardasi and every one of those nights Parmak woke for Jessie’s feeding to hear that soft murmur. He enjoys Jack’s noise; the quiet unnerves him.Past Garak/Parmak and background Garak/BashirPreviously posted on Tumblr with some edits and minor additions





	Dear Jessie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zombified_queer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/gifts).



> Stole the title from Madonna'a "Dear Jessie" because I weirdly like that song. This also features my alternate version of Parmak affectionately dubbed "C132 Parmak". His backstory is featured in both "If--" and "The Downward Spiral". I give more explanation on this Tumblr post:  
> https://cyrelia-j.tumblr.com/post/174224671218/a-tale-of-two-parmaks-or-the-big-write-up-on-my
> 
> This is mainly the same universe as DS9 but with an averted Dominion War and characters meeting under different circumstances. I normally don't do things this fluffy and romantic but I had a prompt that I ran with and ended up falling in love with this iteration of the pairing and these characters. 
> 
> Also warning because a lot of this is headcanons and blanks/things I just made up.

The hand on his chest doesn’t always wake him. The mouth doesn’t either. It’s strange because the years he’d spent in the “re education” camp had conditioned him to sleep lightly and to wake quickly. He would be ready to hide in case one of the guards was in a mood, or in case Dr. Medek decided that it would be fun for his “unbreakable colleague” to assist him in the lab late at night. It was always to his benefit not to be too deeply asleep in moments such as those. He couldn’t always hide, but sometimes was better than never. Parmak was tall but he was slim and flexible and his bunk mates were often impressed at the spaces he could squeeze into even with the impairment of his bent spine. 

Dr. Medek had made a rather impressive study of Parmak’s pain conditioning, fascinated that the old Dr. Parmak was able to achieve - that is a conditioned pleasure response to even the most brutal torture through nothing but years of determination - what the Order required implants for. In the end Parmak had served his term before any concrete determinations could be made as to whether or not he was a unique case or if such things could be replicated. He supposed he ought to feel bad for that -given that Dr. Medek was a representative of The State doing her most important work- but Dr. Medek was a rather unpleasant sort and Parmak didn’t particularly miss him when one of the dissident cells blew the officers’ quarters into splinters and dust some months later.

Parmak sleeps deeply nowadays. He sleeps like the dead: like a mummy wrapped in white, Jack says. Jack taught him all about the burial processes of what humans call “mummies”. Parmak found it morbidly fascinating and thought it might be exciting to one day see the great pyramids and the ancient tombs. Jack was sure to follow up with a warning about mummy curses and an even more intriguing treatise on an old Earth practice of using the remains of those dead for medicine. Jack knows far more about medicine than he lets on, the subject a sore point that he doesn’t often discuss, but he can talk for hours on the matters of old texts and mythology. 

They don’t have white sheets; the white sheets make Jack uneasy. They’re too much like the sheets were at The Institute. Parmak rather prefers the black ones they use when they’re needed at all. Jack runs hot and his warmth is usually more than enough for he three of them. Jack tells him he looks like Snow White when he sees him asleep on their modest pallet on the floor and it makes Jack want to kiss him terribly. Parmak finds it funny that Jack would liken him of all people to a fictional human maiden of unrivaled beauty but he goes along. Jack is a peerless trove of memorized old tales, the more ghastly, the better he likes to say. Parmak prefers them to Julian’s moralizing fables that tend to get bandied around when on break from their shifts. Dr. Julian Bashir is one of his Federation colleagues at the Health Ministry in Central.

Parmak always wakes up when Jack kisses him. It isn’t any particular sort of “magic”. Rather it’s because Jack can’t kiss his mouth without biting his lips. Jack was relieved at first to know that Cardassians didn’t kiss as humans but instead preferred to interlock hands, intertwine fingers, and slowly caress, stroking at the palm, and at the wrist. Jack enjoyed that sort of intimacy even lacking the sensitive points on the hands and wrists that Cardassians possessed. Jack marveled at Parmak’s intense reaction the first time that they’d embraced palms and he’d spent the evening experimentally tracing patterns, squeezing, caressing, even giving a few small nips to his fingers until Parmak - much to his embarrassment - was left a shuddering mess on his lap. He found it hard to believe at the time that Jack had never been intimate with anyone prior to that night.

Jack was - and still is - terribly self-conscious about his not being able to control the biting, the urge to nip when something is near his mouth. He told Parmak that sometimes Dr. Loews would have to put a piece of something in his mouth so he wouldn’t bite his own fingers to bleeding. Parmak’s noticed that he only does that when he’s anxious and he’s worked with him to try and channel his nerves to other habits. He was able to work with a colleague in Pediatrics to provide Jack with his own little biting rings that he wears on his fingers and one on his wrist that he can wear as a protection with just enough give and tactile response to be satisfying. But honestly? Parmak’s unusual pain response means most of the time he’ll let Jack bite him instead.

Sometimes he comes from it.

If Parmak allows him to, Jack will bite his lips to bleeding when they’re kissing like humans, sometimes his tongue too. Parmak rather likes it when Jack does that. He likes it when Jack bites his fingers, bites his ridges good and hard the way he never would have thought a human could, and he loves when Jack bites his nipples. He doesn’t bite toes though. Parmak had accidentally broken his nose with a surge of sensitive ticklish nerves so the feet have remained off limits. Jack can sometimes be what humans would call “too rough”; he bites, he squeezes with bruising pressure, he embraces too hard, slaps too hard, likes to watch things bleed with a hypnotic fascination. He always stops when Parmak tells him to and he goes harder when Parmak begs. More often that not Parmak has to resist the urge to beg.

Julian has scolded him on more than one occasion for such “enabling behavior” over lunch at work. Julian feels free to offer his “professional opinions” on a wide variety of subjects concerning Parmak and Jack, being that Jack is one of his former patients. “Former patient” for all of a month and in any case what Parmak and his bondmate do is still none of Julian’s business. If he has a problem, then Parmak might suggest he go back in time and explain to his past ignorant iteration that the “smart Cardassian man” he was supposed to be consulting with on Jack’s case was Kelas Parmak. 

It certainly wasn’t the former spy, former torturer, Parmak’s former lover, former “bury me if you ever touch me again snake” Elim Garak. Missing Julian then, Parmak only saw one “dashing human with brilliant hazel eyes” in the Replimat that day. It was Jack, squatting anxiously on a chair biting his thumb reading a PADD. He looked up at Parmak seeming stunned that anyone would approach him, but followed it up with a series of blistering invectives, topping it off with a grand jump off the chair right there in his face. Parmak couldn’t believe that a human would so brazenly proposition him, flustered and excited at the display just grinning stupidly the entire time. Even when he realized it was all a misunderstanding of culture, he was totally lost to that brilliant searching expression and energy.

Julian is an augment. Jack is an augment. Julian is a doctor. Jack was a patient he was escorting around Deep Space Nine. Parmak was there at the behest of a colleague who’d been approached by a Federation doctor by the name of Karen Loews regarding some of his pharmacological work. They had determined that some serums he’d innovated for behavioral modification at the behest of the former government might help to temper Jack’s violent urges and erratic behavior. This, they claimed, was in lieu of some barbaric and dated operation even by their standard. Well Parmak had determined that Jack’s “issues”, while numerous, certainly weren’t in need of the sort of drastic intervention they were asking of him. What Jack needed was Parmak, plain and simple, and simple Julian could very well take “plain and simple” Garak and rot in the dragon’s tomb the both of them. Julian, Parmak found upon getting to know him, was a bland overly conciliatory little stick boy where Jack was a passionate, contentious, and brilliant powerful man. 

Jack renounced his Federation citizenship and returned to Cardassia Prime with him after much heated debate. The State always held open arms for the “gifted” and perhaps that bit took a little underhandedness on his part, but he never regretted it a single day. Jack always had all sorts of clever and interesting nicknames for Parmak and delighted in learning Kardasi, filling his time devising ambitious puns and wordplay, actually managing to impress a few of Parmak’s more arrogant colleagues along the way. Parmak had ventured taking him to the poetry reads he used to attend in his younger days, seeing Jack absorbing the contentious atmosphere of debate like a sponge, coming alive when he was able to yell his heated opinions finding the same fired back without chastisement. Parmak loved those nights with him, watching him take the stage a few times himself with fire and fury, jumping, a step, a flip or a kick to illustrate a point. Guls, he was breathtaking! Parmak might have also been a bit weak for his inhuman strength as well.

Still, there were times when Parmak may have had to step in after a few violent altercations outside the reads where they were generally accepted. Sometimes he wasn’t sure if Jack might not require alternate treatments besides their own sessions and his carefully blended teas. He kept observing him though, and realized in fact that there were very specific triggers that Jack possessed, certain situations that overwhelmed him, certain gestures, motions, words that fed into his anxieties and paranoia. When Jack started opening up to him it became clear that what he was looking at was only a partial failing of the neural pathway acceleration itself which enhanced already existing social and communication issues. It seemed rather obvious then that they could hardly expect someone to develop proper socialization under those circumstances and Parmak was glad that here was here now where he might learn to behave like a proper Cardassian without having to work at undoing years of human nonsense.

Jack had told him that he’d been locked away at The Institute since he was an adolescent and that confused Parmak. He’d always understood the Federation to pride themselves on their understanding and accommodations when it came to neurologically atypical citizens. He didn’t understand why they would have imprisoned him so callously without crime when he had such clear intellectual gifts and a desire to be useful. Jack informed him rather bitterly that they didn’t “take chances” where augments were concerned, and that the act of even being an augment might as well be criminal in the Federation. “Augments don’t get help, they get put away,” he’d say describing his makeshift family that he’d come to miss. Parmak didn’t know much about them, thinking about possibilities there as well, but as for Jack, that was their loss. He was a provocative and wildly popular poet, a stunning guest lecturer at their most prestigious universities, a driven and endlessly doting bondmate, and a model father who would do anything for their child. 

The Guls damned Federation can rot from the inside out.

Parmak smiles as he stirs with a contented little hum. It’s not Jack lightly pressing to his chest but their little hatchling Jala’se or “Jessie” as Jack calls zem. They say “Zem” in honor of the Steppe custom for children not to decide their gender until adulthood. He and Jack both adore the child they hadn’t thought possible. The old Central Command routinely ordered sterilization and the destruction of any Legacy stem cells for dissidents. That didn’t matter much for Parmak; scanning him upon arrival only confirmed that he was in fact sterile. The fallopian tubes hadn’t completely formed at birth. Even then, at present day, at over a hundred years old he’d only laughed when Julian mentioned it. Julian – freshly assigned to Central after returning with a de-exiled Garak – decided to stick his nose where it absolutely didn’t belong and “discovered” the legacy stem cells that the Order had supposedly destroyed. He informed Parmak cautiously that he thought he could possibly repair, regrow, and recreate what had been lost if that was a thing that he and Jack had ever thought about.

It had only come up once in a matter of fact sort of way with Parmak confirming the obvious and Jack shrugging it off once he’d spent a good hour railing against governmental tyranny and then decided that there were several dozen French authors Parmak absolutely had to read. Parmak enjoyed Rousseau. Jack enjoyed his poor attempts at speaking French. When that possibility was presented once more as a reality, Jack was the first to dive headlong for it with his usual infectious enthusiasm, easily hoisting Parmak’s near six foot frame over his head in a wild spin. (Jack loved showing off how strong he was.) 

Parmak had calmly to point out that it was merely a possibility opened not a given though he too found himself warming to the idea the more he allowed himself to think about it. Jack had developed such a supreme confidence in himself in that five years since they first met, and he declared with absolutely certainty that they would have their little hatchling. He attacked the matter with gusto too once all the test returned confirming that Parmak’s body was functioning reproductively as effectively as it ever would and Jessie was conceived - stunning Julian, Parmak thought a touch smugly - in a matter of weeks. He wasn’t so sure that the “lucky number seven” Jack was fixated on was terribly realistic given the miraculous odds they’d overcome for the first, but once Jessie was born he seemed to forget about it anyway. 

Sometimes it irritates Parmak that he owes Julian a debt that he’ll never be able to fully repay in spite of what the human may protest. Humans may not have the same honor, but Cardassians view their life debts seriously. Julian not only gave him and Jack their Jessie, but he was also there sanctimoniously, self righteously every step of the way to make sure that during gestation to delivery that Jessie was healthy and as a hybrid child. It irritated him but he was grateful that Julian at last respected his wishes that their child be delivered in their home, ignoring Garak’s running commentary on the habits of “quaint Northern folk” as he squatted, grunting, sweating, Jack never letting go of his hand, lifting him when he struggled to stand. He’d cursed Garak to the grave that night for what he’d allowed Tain to do to the both of them just as Garak handed him the herbs he’d sent for from Drav to ease the rest of the way. 

The Southerners had their doctors, their sterile rooms, and their egg incubators. The North had their herbs, their homes, and their singular live births. Garak had asked his trust in his most vulnerable of moments as he handed him the brew that night knowing of all the tainted - emphasis on Tain - history between them. It was only Julian’s ingesting it first that assuresd him it was safe that allowed him to take it so that his body could properly relax as he knew that it would. He didn’t miss the bald hurt flashing beneath that glib rejoinder from his former lover, but they never spoke of it since and he didn’t imagine they ever would.

The head of the hybrid child was larger, his age making the pregnancy last longer than the usual six months, but ze was born perfect into the world, loud and beautiful and Parmak had felt Jack cry softly against him as he held them both. Julian had suggested after the birth that it might be best not to tempt his health “at his age” with a second and Parmak told him politely but firmly that he could keeps his nose out of such matters. Julian did respect that though, respectfully keeping his discourse to helpful suggestions on supplements and follow up surgeries to make things easier for him the next time. Jack had grudgingly thanked him at that too. Parmak sighs at that memory, feeling those small hands and claws seeking out his slightly enlarged breast, followed by his nipple in the darkness of the room to feed. That brings him back to the present where he can hear Jack’s soft whispers and the scratch of a pen in the dark, Jack’s augmented vision allowing him to see as well as any Cardassian. 

Parmak hasn’t decided yet if he wants to come to full wakefulness. There’s a nice warm bit of dreaminess as he feels the gentle suckling from their hatchling. They had to compromise once Jessie was born. He couldn’t have Jack savaging his nipples like normal so that he could feed zem properly. For now, Jack will bite other places instead, getting wickedly creative with it. Parmak didn’t know before how much he’d love the feel of Jack’s teeth to his hips, lightly grazing the ridges around his chuva. Jack is a wonder with his mouth whether it’s their shared intimacy or singing softly to their little one, an old song from his childhood. There’s one that Parmak especially loves which is another French name that he mangles horribly. The human dialects really dislike his Northern tongue… The brush of dark curls over his scales now reminds him how much of the two of them Jessie inherited. He doesn’t consider their child so much a gift but rather an exchange, their precious hatchling for a lifetime of Julian and Garak’s presence in their lives.

It is as Jack would say, a “no brainer”.

It’s possibly a “brainless” decision made with sentiment rather than intellect, but ever since he impulsively stole Jack away from Federation custody (Julian likes to protest when Parmak says it that way, saying it sounds far more sinister than “commitment”) Parmak has allowed himself to make a few more of those sentimental life choices. He didn’t think he held much belief in anything beyond his vaccination work or his work for the order. He didn’t used to think he had much purposes in the world beyond his own survival to save lives but he... doesn’t think it’s so terrible now to be happy too. One day he even dreams of building a space outside Central where they can live like the Steppe, free with their friends, with whatever makeshift family they can cobble together. But for now this is good, this is very good, he thinks to himself when he hears the loud clack of Jack setting the pen down beside the bed. Jack makes sure his usually silent gestures are heard by Cardassian ears so that Parmak always knows what he’s doing. Neither of them like sudden surprises. 

Parmak practically purrs when he feels a hand to his forehead, a thumb lightly circling his chufa making him nearly comatose with that serotonin release. It’s bliss. It’s total bliss. Jack is awake, of course, Jessie between the both of them on the firm palette of their “den”. That’s what Jack calls their bedroom. It’s a peaceful dark space with their palette on the floor and a few books scattered around. It’s a touch cooler than the Southerners like it but it’s comfortable for Jack and he likes that the lights aren’t bright and that it’s quiet. There’s no hum of lights in their little den or in Jack’s office. It reminds Parmak of his childhood on the steppe of Nokar. Jack says that it lets the buzz in his head quiet down some. The verbal tics that he has relax a bit in the dark when he speak to Parmak softly.

Jack rarely sleeps for any length of time, instead catching rest in small increments through the day. Like “Da Vinci”, he says. Parmak noticed it the first time they’d fallen asleep together. Or rather, he noticed it the first time they’d properly spent the night together and he realized that he hadn’t detected any signs of sleep from the man the entire night. He was concerned at first, but then determined that Jack didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects as many tests as he’d run on him. He asked Julian once if that was because Jack was an augment. Julian answered in that annoying human circumspection that no, Jack was just “special”. Well Parmak had a lifetime of being “special” himself so he didn’t take kindly to being condescended to for the sake of token politeness. He supposed that was just another way for Julian to distance himself from “the other augment” and tried not to hold such thoughtless statements against him. Parmak for his part, found it reassuring to have an ever vigilant presence watching him. It made him feel safe. It allowed him to finally sleep.

After all, Jack would kill to protect them without hesitation.

He hears the babble dimly as Jack’s head comes closer to his. Jack likes to talk to him when he sleeps. Sometimes he’ll recite human plays. For three days Parmak remembers, Jack recited the entire Never Ending Sacrifice in flawless Kardasi and every one of those nights Parmak woke for Jessie’s feeding to hear that soft murmur. He enjoys Jack’s noise; the quiet unnerves him. Tonight, he thinks that Jack is reciting one of Iloja of Prim’s works as he sets his own aside. Parmak is excited to see Jack’s finished work drawing from such ambitious inspiration. It pleases him to know their hatchling has such an educated father to write and recite these things for zem while ze is still too young to read them properly. Jack is strong. Ze will be strong too, and Parmak imagines ze will be a brilliant doctor one day as the twenty first in his foster father’s line. Jack says as long as he doesn’t become a Federation dog it’s all the same to him. Jack likes to call Julian a Federation Mutt. Parmak enjoys watching his colleague try to hide an irritated bristle when he does.

Parmak purrs softly when Jack’s hand moves to be replaced by his mouth. Parmak looks up, eyes blinking unfocused at him. He’s close enough to see, but the nystagmatism causes everything to shake. Jack has his spectacles to his face before he blinks twice. Parmak smiles as his arm holds their little hatchling while ze continues to suckle. He’s slept a few hours and he feels himself coming into wakefulness even with that delirious haze Jessie’s bringing as ze feeds. Ze won’t need more than another ten minutes he thinks. Sometimes Jessie will doze back off afterwards, occasionally on Parmak’s chest enjoying the warmth of his body before Jack takes zem to the small bathroom down the hall. 

Sometimes ze’ll be completely awake as well and Parmak will read to zem along with Jack, or roll one of the little multicolored wooden balls back and forth on the hard floor. Jack likes to play too, seeing how many he can catch in a matter of seconds. Twenty is his record in 3 seconds and Jessie squeals with delight watching the speed of zes father’s hands. The sound is high like a human’s but also half a little chirrup like a Cardassian and it utterly melts Parmak to hear it. He can see in Jack’s eyes and the way the he still with a soft smile that it melts him too.

Tonight, Jack puts another soft press of lips to his chufa, that strange facial hair of his making him shiver. There are some nights where Jack will kiss him hard after Jessie’s early morning feeding and eliminating is seen to. He’ll slide into Parmak slowly, silently, next to their sleeping hatchling, sometimes after Parmak himself has fallen back to sleep. Jack will be just a whisper of motion inside him then falling still, then executing another exquisite infinitesimal roll of hips as subtle as Parmak’s own breaths. Jack will cover him then with his body, breathing against him the slightest measure harder than normal for hours a series of hushed and indistinct words to his skin, to the ridges of his shoulder until the sun comes up. 

It gives Parmak the most beautiful dreams, feeling Jack inside him during that REM state. Jack likes to tell him that being lost in him like that for hours is the closest he’s ever come to religion. Sometimes he’ll slowly pull back, leaving with a tickle of his mustache to the side of Parmak’s face if Jessie wakes and needs to be comforted or relieved. Others he’ll start moving faster in those final frantic minutes, little by little, harder, deeper, seizing Parmak’s mouth until he feels tears pinpricking his eyes, until it’s too much and he can’t take it anymore, and he’s literally sobbing through a near blacked back out orgasm when Jack spills hot and thick inside of him. He always comes again, a soft cry stuck in his throat when he feels Jack cleaning him with his tongue.

Dr. Julian “It’s not my place to judge while everything I say is full of censure veiled as concern” Bashir finds that revolting. Parmak caught that response after overhearing Garak telling him primly that it’s “Northerner Tradition for a couple to lay nude during sleep should the urge to rut like animals arise”. Parmak had calmly explained that it was perfectly natural to express their love and that he refuses to be ashamed should their child see that expression and he dares Julian to repeat any of what he’d said to Garak to his face. He didn’t doubt that Garak had set that up deliberately for him to overhear. It was another in a long line of snips between the both of them for the failure of the broken relationship. Parmak sometimes wishes he hadn’t stopped at merely killing Tain. 

Julian was full of stammers and non confrontational nonsense when he was called on it. Once again Parmak could see no comparison in the two augments beyond the superficial and really not even there; Jack for starters, had the most fantastic and squeezable ass. He supposed Julian was nice enough looking but Jack was soft and thick where it counted and hard where he needed to be. He, unlike Julian understood the importance of Dr. Parmak’s family credo: one for a hundred. That was what Tain’s death had been and he didn’t doubt that killing Tain would spare a hundred. Julian only understood hypocrisy and the “Hippocratic Oath”. Jack has asked Parmak more than once if his former lover needs to be straightened out like “The old Rough Rider would”. Parmak doesn’t rightly know what that means but he wouldn’t put Jack’s brilliant violence against Garak’s calculating experience with any certainty for either of them. Besides, he can’t change the past and that isn’t what matters.

Jack understands him, that’s what matters.

Jack is also known as Jonathan J. Merriwether, but only Parmak knows that name. He feels another press of lips, another careful restraint right now. Three kisses, no bites. Jack is holding back, and when Jessie falls back to sleep Parmak has an excited suspicion that it will be another one of those nights. He smiles at that, tenderly stroking the back of Jessie’s head. That isn’t his focus now though, the warmth in his breast from his hatchling’s little hands is what hangs highest in his mind. He’ll be ready for Jack when he needs to be, after Jessie is seen to. His body always welcomes the familiarity of his mate inside of him. Parmak kisses the top of Jessie’s head, the imperfect little lump of zes chufa warm beneath his lips. Jack kisses four then bites him. Parmak laughs, their child suckling on contented without a care in the world.   
For once, Parmak doesn’t have one either.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to give a heartfelt thanks to anyone reading this. I know with the minor characters and headcanons it reads almost closer to an original story but I do appreciate these characters existing and am so pleased and excited to tell some stories with them as well :)


End file.
